


up | down

by argle_fraster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Canon, Angels, Canon Compliant, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, First Kiss, M/M, Season/Series 04, Slow Build, Vessels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 07:45:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16929261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/argle_fraster/pseuds/argle_fraster
Summary: Castiel needs a vessel to find Dean Winchester, and Jimmy Novak needs a sign that his faith has been acknowledged.[Season 4 vessel fic that takes some liberties with the canon by allowing Castiel and Jimmy to both inhabit Jimmy's body.]





	up | down

**Author's Note:**

> I was really craving some vessel fic, particularly after rewatching 4x20. Clearly this takes a turn with the canon of season 4 since Dean/Cas has never officially happened, but I'm okay with the detours.

Hell, even for an angel, is a jarring experience.

Castiel has no corporeal form in Hell as he slashes through the demons and gore, but he still feels the licks of flame against his grace, shocks of _wrong, foul_ that reverberate through his consciousness. Part of him feels proud that he has been chosen in the garrison sent to retrieve the Righteous Man’s soul, even if he is nothing but a foot soldier in the midst of greater beings, a number paling in comparison next to the blinding goodness of the archangel leading the charge through the gore and carnage, stained red like human blood. Castiel’s brothers and sisters are in front of him and behind him as they carve their way through the misery, and he hears them, _feels_ them when they are cut down by demons and hellhounds, but he cannot let it deter him.

Michael, a beacon of everything the Host stands for, cuts through the mass of demons as they fly down, down, down to Dean Winchester’s soul.

It takes seconds and years, wrapped together and warped beyond belief. By the time they find him, a knife in each hand, half the garrison has fallen, and Castiel can still hear their screams. Will they stay there in Hell, in the putrid depths, unable to return to Heaven? He doesn’t know; he thinks, worries, but doesn’t ask. His grace is trembling with fatigue and corrupted resonance, blocking out the worst of Lucifer’s twisted domain, and it takes all his focus to remain as he is. Michael has found the soul, his dominion, the vessel made for _him_ and him alone, and Dean Winchester is carving tendrils from a weeping life that might have, at one point, been a young woman.

Castiel has never seen anything as bright as the Righteous Man’s soul. If he’d had eyes, he’d have lost them to the brightness that is Dean Winchester; the sight makes him want to weep. He’d believed, but he’d never really _believed_ , and it’s a difference Castiel couldn’t have known existed until this very moment. It’s the purest thing he’s ever seen, and his grace reaches for it involuntarily, if just to get tangled in the light.

“Come,” Michael commands. It’s not spoken, but it is, it’s _booming_ , a voice that cuts through the worst of the grime coating Hell around them, and it echoes through Castiel’s grace.

Dean Winchester snarls, bearing teeth white against the splattered crimson on his lips, and says, “Fuck off.”

It’s a refusal—no, it’s worse than that. Michael reels back in surprise and shock, grace twisting with fury, for no one refuses an archangel. They’ve arrived too late, and the Righteous Man has been lost to them, swallowed up by the festering agony they allowed to claim him in the first place. But his soul is still so bright Castiel can’t tear his sight away from it, and he wants to touch it, wants to _know_ it.

Michael takes a step further, towards Dean Winchester and the sobbing, incoherent soul strung on the rack in front of him. “You will obey me. We are here for _you_.”

Dean responds by flinging one of his knives, with practiced precision, at Michael’s grace-form.

Around them, Hell has responded. Woken like a lazy cat, the demons are clustering near, and it is only a matter of time before the worst of them take notice. How they have carved out so large a trail through the destruction without alerting the Queen is a miracle, woven into Michael’s archangel influence, but it will not last forever. Castiel’s grace shivers as the hellhounds close in behind them. There is no time—they must leave.

Michael can feel it too, and he snarls, full of rage. “Come with us _now_!”

With every command, Dean Winchester’s soul pulses. He’s angry, twisted by decades of torture and pain, and he’s responding as a wounded animal would. The remnants of what he once was lay in tatters around his feet, but they are still there, blinking in and out of existence; not lost, but discarded, peeled apart as Hell molded him through blood and tears. If Michael cannot convince the Righteous Man to leave, the mission will fail, and Hell will win.

The soul is too bright, too vivid, to give to the demons, and Castiel takes a step forward.

He is breaking rank, disobeying orders. Behind him, others in his garrison have already turned to fight off the demons closing in on their location, and he should help them. He is a soldier, a sword of justice, and only that, but in the presence of Dean Winchester, he feels like more. 

“You will not deny me!” Michael seethes, and Castiel slides through the entrails towards Dean Winchester and the miserable torture rack.

“I will carve those pearly wings off your back,” Dean replies, spitting blood onto the mud before Michael’s shimmering grace.

Castiel reaches a hand out towards the brightness, entranced and unable to look away. “Dean.”

The Righteous Man turns to him and stills.

It’s a single moment of hesitation, like Dean had been so focused on Michael’s impossible goodness, the swell of his immeasurable strength, that he’d lost sight of everything else around him. Castiel is nothing but a pebble in the shadow of the mightiest of them all, and perhaps it marks him as unimportant; it doesn’t matter. The second of stillness gives him all the time he needs to surge forward and lay his hand on Dean Winchester’s shoulder.

There is a scream, and then another, and Castiel can’t tell them apart. One is furious and vengeful, Hell itself rising up to try and reclaim its lost prize, and the other—the other is Michael, for Castiel has just laid claim to the chosen vessel of the strongest, the most holy, the sword of Heaven. Dean Winchester was _his_.

It doesn’t matter. They flee Hell with the hounds nipping at their heels until the world, their Father’s creation, bursts back into shape and color and sound around them, and the rage of the Lightbringer falls away behind them. Michael is gone, his absence a dark hole, as Castiel lays Dean Winchester’s soul back where it belongs.

\--

 _Yes_ , Jimmy says, like the word has meaning, reverence, like his whole being hinges on that single syllable, that easy agreement. He says yes and means it, right down to his bones, bones Castiel leans forward in all his grace to feel, fill, _become_. It has been a long time since he’s had a vessel, a long time since he’s had a need, but longer still since one has resonated so rightly in time with his energies.

Jimmy Novak was made to be his, molded to house and protect and contain the potent, bright-gleaming grace of a seraph, and Castiel tips down into all the cracks and crevices afforded to him. As soon as he touches the hair, skin, muscles, he feels Jimmy’s joy, the satisfaction that he was _right_ all along.

Castiel needs a vessel to find Dean Winchester, and Jimmy Novak needs a sign that his faith has been acknowledged.

If Castiel had thought the return from Hell was rattling, it’s nothing compared to the sudden _realness_ around him. From above, in his true form, there are sounds and prayers and a thousand voices whispering in his ears, but there aren’t smells or textures beneath his fingers. He staggers, out of sync with the body he’s now occupying, and can’t quite find his balance. Without his wings, without the tails of grace, the angel world goes starkly quiet in a way he’s never heard before, and his Father’s creation roars in to take its place.

Shell-shocked, Castiel raises his hand to stare at the slim fingers and tries to move them one by one, managing only half before his vision, now limited and linear, with a single plane of existence that bucks up as if to meet his face, blurs.

 _Breathe_ , comes Jimmy’s voice. _You have to breathe._

Castiel sucks in a lungful of air, crisp and cool and sharp, and the blackness at the edge of his sight recedes again. He has already made a grave error, for Jimmy’s consciousness should have slipped away immediately upon his agreement, laid down in the still stream of blissful unawareness, and Castiel was so thrown by the sudden jolt of sensation that he neglected to do it. He reaches inward, and then pauses. His vessel’s legs are clunky and strange beneath him, and it has been so long, so long since he’s felt the world in cold breaths against human skin.

He thinks of putting Jimmy to sleep, but the rapturous joy is still there, seeping out from Jimmy’s awareness, and for some reason, it’s calming. His vessel’s heart is thudding wildly against his ribs, but Jimmy’s satisfaction is a river of peace. Perhaps it would not be so terrible to keep him alert, at least until Castiel has fully immersed himself in the vessel’s mechanics.

 _I’ll stay,_ Jimmy says, and Castiel feels another glow of contentment. _I want to see the Holy mission. I’ve prayed for this, and I want to know what God’s plan is._

Uriel would punish him for such a thing, for such a slip. If anyone else knew, Castiel would be sent back to Heaven immediately for re-education, for “alterations”, and he knows this, knows this deep down through his newly-borrowed nerves, but he stills. Jimmy’s happiness at being chosen by Heaven is intoxicating, and Castiel wants to feel more of it. It’s _real_ , true human happiness, the kind that licks inside the blood and warms the fingers.

Just for a little while, then. Jimmy will be helpful in relearning how to move with skin and bone restraints. He can see the Holy mission Castiel has been charged with and know that he is part of it. He has prayed for this, to see, to know, and Castiel has the ability to grant him that, if nothing else.

 _Thank you,_ Jimmy whispers, followed by another blossom of warmth, and Castiel flies.

\--

When he finds Dean Winchester, alive and whole despite the years of torture in the pit below, Castiel feels relief. He has grown more fluid with the vessel’s movements, yet some things elude him. Jimmy Novak’s body jerks and shivers and curls in response to stimuli Castiel has not had to think about in hundreds of years, and yet, despite the foreignness of it, the vessel folds in around Castiel like a shell. He goes to Dean, eager to explain, to see the Righteous Man in true flesh and blood.

Dean Winchester blows his body full of holes and shoves a knife through his ribs.

Jimmy’s consciousness flies into a panic. It’s residual pain, phantom sensation, something that Jimmy himself has never experienced but knows, intrinsically, that he should, and Castiel struggles to focus with the surging emotions bleeding into his own. He is grace made flesh, celestial energy inhabiting a vessel, and the body stitches itself closed almost as fast as its ripped apart, yet this does nothing to soothe Jimmy’s awareness.

Castiel has to send him to sleep in order to proceed. In doing so, he loses control over some of his vessel’s functions. His eyes narrow, his fingers shake, and he doesn’t bother to correct it. Dean Winchester stares at him with wide, disbelieving eyes, and Castiel is overcome with the desire to shake him. Does he not remember being pulled from Hell, being taken, being saved? There is a quick brush of something dark against his grace.

It’s only later that Jimmy stirs again, groggy and slow, and says, _You’re sad he doesn’t remember you saving him._

That’s impossible. Castiel is a soldier, and his orders come from above. He is not beholden to this man, no matter how bright or righteous or blinding his soul is—and it is, so much so that Castiel can still see it through the sinew and muscle, see right through to the core of it. He does not care what this mortal man does or does not remember.

Jimmy is tired and overwhelmed. _That’s sadness, Castiel. It’s normal._

It’s not; not for angels, not for soldiers of the Lord, but Castiel can’t find the words to explain it, and his vessel’s throat closes uncomfortably as he leaves.

\--

He is afraid that Uriel knows. He fears that Uriel can see right through him to where Jimmy is coiled, watching, as they wait for Dean Winchester to decide what to do about Samhain. Uriel is impatient, and Castiel can see it. Uriel does not wish to wait around to see what Dean decides to do. He wishes to act, to smite, to remove the choice entirely, and for a moment, Castiel wonders if his vessel was treated the same way.

Was his vessel devout and pleased by the offering to be part of something bigger? Or had Uriel promised something he would never deliver?

Castiel wrings his hands as he waits, a move too human, too instinctual, to be perceived as anything else, and hopes that his superior does not notice.

 _You care about the souls residing within the others,_ Jimmy says.

It’s a gift to be called. It’s a blessing to be chosen. The very possibility of housing an angel’s grace and consciousness has been woven into the humans genetic code, held in their blood. Uriel’s vessel was created to house him, just as Jimmy Novak’s body was made to house Castiel, yet there is a twinge of something within as Castiel watches the other.

 _Maybe it’s not always a blessing,_ Jimmy says, quieter. _Maybe they are subdued and know nothing that’s happening around them._

They most certainly are, and Castiel should be the same. Jimmy’s thoughts turn to his wife and daughter and grow heavy, morose, and there is an echo of the feeling Castiel had experienced earlier. The sadness. Jimmy is sad to have left them. He worries, the sensation twisting his awareness around until it aches. It must be his fault that Castiel is feeling what he does.

It must be because of Jimmy that Castiel’s grace dims in unhappiness.

 _I don’t think it is,_ Jimmy says, and he is distinctly displeased, _but if you think so, put me to sleep and see if it continues._

Castiel doesn’t wish to. Jimmy’s feelings, while distracting, help a great deal in deciphering why the Winchesters make the decisions they do. They are rash and blunt and too quick to turn the other way, and Castiel can’t understand why. It’s too human. He needs Jimmy to keep up with the illogical acts; he needs Jimmy to stay one step ahead of Uriel and the others.

The vessel’s eyes flicker to where Uriel is standing, though Castiel’s shoulders remain board straight.

_You’ve never liked him._

There’s heat, a quick heat that spreads through Castiel’s cheeks, and he has to turn his head away lest Uriel see the flush. He steels himself, pulling his grace around him as a shield, for he’s given too much away. This is why they are meant to keep their hosts still and unaware—it is a two-way street, the bleeding of feelings and emotions and thoughts. Castiel is an angel, called to a higher purpose, and Jimmy merely the fortunate result of a bloodline kept strong to house an eventuality.

 _Castiel!_ Jimmy is angry, bristling. He’s felt the way Castiel has withdrawn to keep his emotions hidden, and he cannot do the same himself. _Why—_

Castiel cuts him off with a tendril of grace; it was the wrong choice. Jimmy’s anger doubles, bright and sharp, pressing against the bounds of the vessel they share.

 _You think you’re so much better than me,_ Jimmy hisses, _but you’re nothing but a coward. You doubt this is the right choice. Why don’t you fight it? Aren’t you supposed to be the light of God?_

That’s what Castiel feels in his gut, throbbing in time with his vessel’s heartbeat: doubt. Seeds of it, promises he should never be allowed to house. He’s strayed far enough to merit immediate punishment, and if he valued his post and his integrity, he would turn himself in at once to have the dark spots purged.

Instead, he runs his tongue over his bottom lip to feel the dry, chapped flesh.

He cannot share his doubt with Jimmy. The initial joy of having such a heavenly purpose has faded, leaving behind merely a man who misses, longs, and fears. It’s harder to work around the myriad of Jimmy’s emotions, and Castiel has gone too far to put him to sleep now. Expressing doubt in his mission might push Jimmy’s soul beyond despair, might render his sacrifice meaningless. He believed, truly believed, and it was the mark of a traitor that Castiel could no longer say such things about himself.

He cannot confide in Jimmy, but he can build stronger walls to separate them.

Castiel finds himself on a bench next to Dean Winchester, his hands strung together in his lap.

“I have questions,” he confesses. “I have doubt.”

Dean Winchester looks at him with eyes that see too much and too little, with a soul that burns brighter than the whole of the garrison. He is calming, somehow, a soul Castiel knows more intimately than even Jimmy’s, trapped in the same vessel as himself. Castiel’s grace longs to reach out and touch Dean’s soul again just to feel the surety and promise it affords, but he holds himself back.

He lets himself bask in the sunlight on his face and Dean Winchester’s beaming soul beside him.

When Dean is gone, Castiel presses two fingers against his vessel’s sternum, but he can’t dislodge the tightness that’s taken up residence there.

\--

While they wait, Jimmy thinks of Amelia and Claire.

Castiel should turn the connection off. He should put Jimmy to sleep where he will dream, contentedly, of his wife and daughter, instead of worry about their safety. _What if they think I’ve forgotten about them? What if they think I’m dead?_

Castiel has no answer for this. His allegiance is to Heaven and the Host’s missions, not to the vessel he is borrowing, and not to Jimmy’s family. Jimmy said yes, and that was all the consent Castiel needed. Still, it feels wrong, somehow, to ignore them, and Jimmy’s pain is beginning to soak into Castiel’s interactions with the others in his garrison.

He’d said he would take care of Jimmy’s family, and he meant it.

 _It’s not just that,_ Jimmy says. _They’ll mourn me. They’ll grieve._

Castiel understands this, he does, but he doesn’t _understand_. He lost hundreds of his brothers and sisters in Hell on the quest to rescue Dean Winchester, and their sacrifice was just that. Soldiers are trained for their eventual end, and dying is a sacred duty. He flexes his vessel’s fingers out and in, out and in, to try and clear the misery from his bloodstream.

_Please just let them know I love them. Please let them realize I’m alive._

He shouldn’t, but he does. He finds Amelia Novak in her sleep and lets her dream of her husband making breakfast in their kitchen. He seeks out Claire Novak, with her blood running as hot as Jimmy’s, body built to house Castiel’s grace, and summons memories of her past, her family, whole and complete.

It’s the most he can do in the absence of returning Jimmy’s body to them.

Jimmy cries, salt tangy against Castiel’s grace, and Castiel cannot see if its from joy or pain. Perhaps, he thinks, the two are too closely tied to discern.

\--

He has not seen Michael since his claiming of the Righteous Man in Hell, so Castiel flees when the archangel’s presence begins to fill Heaven. He can’t face the mightiest of them all, the glory of their Father, when he knows his handprint has been seared into Dean Winchester’s flesh like a brand. He is ashamed that he disobeyed, but that is not the knot of emotion in his vessel’s gut.

Dean Winchester is sleeping, and Castiel does not wish to wake him. He sits on the side of the motel bed and watches a mouse scurry past the window. He listens to the clock click to the next minute, slow and steady, a rhythm his vessel recognizes.

_It doesn’t seem like Dean Winchester wants to be possessed by an angel._

It’s a moment of clarity from Castiel’s host that is distinctly unwanted. The Apocalypse has begun, and the brothers are at the center of it. Michael seeks Dean Winchester, waits for him, and Dean slumbers in scratchy rented sheets.

_He didn’t believe at first. He still doesn’t want to believe._

Not the way that Jimmy always had, at least, and Castiel sends the thought along the taut tether between them, closing his eyes and sighing.

 _He’s too proud,_ Jimmy says, but pride is a sin. Jimmy grows quiet, stilling, and then adds, _You’re proud, too. Proud that you were the one to save him._

Castiel’s eyes snap open. His vessel’s hands have fisted together around the stolen trench coat. He should have put Jimmy to sleep at the very beginning, and this is the price he is paying for his laxness. His vessel is reacting to his emotions unconsciously, involuntarily, and it rattles in Castiel’s grace.

 _You’re afraid?_ Jimmy asks, a question that’s not.

Soldiers of Heaven don’t feel fear. Soldiers of Heaven don’t _feel_ , yet here he is anyway, sitting beside a slumbering man he wishes to be close to and feeling his borrowed form skip in time with his fluttering wings. Doubt and fear, they roil together in his chest. It could be Jimmy’s, all of it, muted emotions leftover as his awareness remains.

 _Lying is also a sin,_ Jimmy reminds him, and Castiel barks out a laugh because there’s nothing else to do. It nearly wakes Dean, who mumbles something in his sleep and rolls over, throwing one arm wide across the mattress.

None of it changes anything.

Castiel is afraid.

\--

He’s caught up in his emotions, his doubts, his fears, and that’s why he doesn’t notice the trickling of grace within Anna— _Anael_ ; at least, that’s what he tells himself. She carries the bits that stayed behind like an invisible crown, even with the humans around her scattering around diagnoses and disorders, labels that keep her locked away. She’s an angel, even though she’s not, and Dean Winchester is drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

When Castiel watches her lean in to kiss him, his heart seizes in his chest. The vessel reacting to his doubt and hesitation he knows, but he doesn’t understand the sudden thunder against his ears, or why his hands, pressed against his thighs, begin to tremble. Anael is not a threat to Dean Winchester, and she means him no harm, but she presses her mouth against his with familiarity. She’s done so before.

Castiel’s grace twists, his vessel’s lungs constricting.

Jimmy hangs back, curling in only on the edge of Castiel’s awareness, and there is something to his distance that pushes Castiel further into confusion. He doesn’t understand.

 _It—it’s jealousy,_ Jimmy tells him, flatly, and his consciousness hunches further away, shrinking back against the outermost reaches.

It can’t be. That can’t be what has caused Castiel’s mouth to dry like the desert sands, or his breath to have grown fast and thin. Jealousy is a human emotion; it has no place in a seraph or a soldier. There can be no jealousy for there can be nothing to be jealous _of_ , nothing in this fallen angel who looks up at Dean with dark eyes. Nothing in this woman, this carrier of grace-shadows, who touches Dean Winchester’s shoulder as if she knows the feel of his flesh against her own.

Jimmy turns his head away, nearly fading of his own volition to a place Castiel can no longer find him.

 _It’s jealousy_ , he says again, and then offers nothing more.

Castiel stares at the back of Dean Winchester’s head, unable to get his vessel’s breathing under control, and is afraid.

\--

They have become too close, Castiel and Jimmy. Castiel can no longer find the lines that used to divide them, the separations drawn in the dirt. Jimmy’s emotions cause his vessel’s hands to twitch, and Castiel’s cause the heart to skip. There is a war within the cavity of the vessel’s chest, _his_ chest, because Castiel can no longer think of it as anything else; the body slips around him and reacts and feels and moves, guided by his own doubt, his own misgivings.

Castiel stands above Dean Winchester’s sleeping form and stares, stares, can’t tear his eyes away.

This can’t be what he’s feeling. Soldiers don’t feel. Soldiers don’t want. He is an angel of the Lord, a seraph beyond the basest of human emotions—he is a tumbling of grace and light created thousands of years ago to serve a single, heavenly purpose.

 _Desire_ , Jimmy says, in that same strange, detached way. He’s not pleased. His body reacts to Castiel’s grace, to the way it strains towards Dean Winchester, but he’s not happy. _You’re feeling desire._

No.

_I know what this feels like. I know what this is._

No, no—Castiel wheezes, unable to find oxygen for his lungs. He doubles over and clutches at the collar of the too-tight shirt. He can’t breathe, he can’t think, and his vision begins to blacken with rapid flashing shadows. He tears at the fabric as he heaves. He will wake Dean any moment, but he’s too far gone to disappear, too solid and corporeal to fall back on his grace’s instincts.

 _Breathe, Castiel!_ Jimmy is there, surrounding him, surging up from the corner he’s been hiding in for days. _Just breathe. You’re going to kill us both._

It can’t be true. None of it is true.

 _I thought angels couldn’t have emotions,_ Jimmy says. _Not like this, anyway._

There’s a wetness to his cheeks. When Castiel touches them, his fingertips come away slick with salt.

He’s falling.

 _In more ways than one,_ Jimmy says, more resigned than angry.

\--

Dean dreams, and Castiel goes to him. He has to tell him, but the words get stuck in his throat. Dean’s soul shines, a lighthouse in the storm, a beacon Castiel will follow until his soles bleed, and he swallows because he can’t find the right thing to say. 

They are watching him. He can feel them on the edge of his awareness and knows that they can see through him. He’s lost the ability to discern their outlines, too wrapped up in his human form, too dimmed by the confines of blood and bone. With every borrowed breath he becomes more human and less angel, and his heart aches. His blood sings. He is terrified and elated at the same time, and doesn’t understand how both emotions can exist side-by-side, overlapping and superseding each other.

Jimmy hangs back. There’s a strain between them now, but Castiel doesn’t find it wholly frustrated anymore. _I’ve felt desire and love and devotion, but this… this is beyond me._

Dean sits on a chair and looks out over a still lake. His hands slowly circle the fishing rod, but he makes no move to recast the line. Lit by the setting sun, he shimmers, and Castiel is falling, falling, so quickly there’ll be nothing left once he hits the ground. His heart hammers in his chest and his tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth, and he wants. He _loves_.

“I have to tell you something important,” he says, “but it’s not safe here.”

“We’re in my head,” Dean shoots back, brow furrowing. His mouth quirks half up, the way it does when he encounters something that doesn’t fit neatly into his preconceived boxes.

Castiel feels them press in. “Exactly. Anyone could be listening.”

He will find Dean later, in the real world, the world of salt and blood and mud beneath his feet, the world his brothers and sisters don’t fully understand. He passes him an address, and the eyes around them begin to close in.

He runs, but somehow, he’s no longer afraid.

\--

His brethren find him first. They are ready; they’ve been watching him. It’s too late that he sees the sigil painted in blood on the wall. They’ve already begun, and he’s wrenched from Jimmy’s body in a surge of pain and fire, holy flames meant to burn his wings away.

He’s failed. He’s failed himself, he’s failed Jimmy Novak, and worst of all, he’s failed Dean Winchester.

There’s a rite for angels who have lost their way. There’s a fix for those charged with Heaven’s mission who can no longer see the path. Castiel is nothing, and then he’s remade, and the storm that rages in the clouds mirrors the same storm curdling through his grace. He’s felt and wanted and needed, and they burn all of it out of him.

They burn out everything that matters.

\--

By the time he returns to awareness, his grace is stiff, almost as if he has never used it before. His wings brush against the bounds he does not remember being there before, invisible chains at the far stretches of his universe.

Below, he hears Jimmy Novak rail at him.

He is no longer himself, and neither is Jimmy. Castiel can almost feel the vessel’s body, but from a distance, a play spread beneath him. The demons have captured Amelia and the Winchesters, and Jimmy Novak is sparking with rage and fear. Castiel moves to reach fingers he no longer has, and his wings beat against his back, propelling him forward.

When Jimmy’s body is shot, Castiel feels it ripple through his form. Claire’s body is not the same, and it does not envelop him like Jimmy’s once had. Moving in an unfamiliar vessel, Castiel is slower than he would have liked to be. He grabs for one of the demons and banishes it, and then the next, but Jimmy’s blood is leaking onto the dirty cement.

Castiel’s grace flickers to him, though his fury is still palpable.

“Leave her,” Jimmy says, flesh and bone once more and spitting blood. His eyes flash. “Take me. Take me instead.”

“You won’t age. You won’t grow old. You thought the last year was painful?” Castiel asks, Claire’s mouth turning his words into reality.

Jimmy’s teeth are stained crimson. “Leave Claire. Take me instead.”

It is a mercy to return. Castiel slips back into Jimmy’s body almost as if he had never left. Jimmy is furious, screaming, and then, when Castiel does nothing to engage, he abruptly cuts away. The silence is perhaps more jarring than the anger was.

 _What did they do to you?_ Jimmy asks. _What happened? You’re gone._

Castiel is not gone. Castiel is whole, finally, with all the incorrect edges filed away. He is what he should have been from the beginning, before he let humanity and emotions fill his head with doubt.

 _No,_ Jimmy says, and he’s sad. He _mourns. They’ve destroyed you. They’ve ruined you._

It is impossible to ruin something that is only what it was ever meant to be.

Jimmy shrinks in, curled over on himself, and shakes and shakes and shakes. _I thought I hated you, but now you’re gone._

\--

It has always been Zachariah: Zachariah who held the reins, who molded the story. Zachariah who ordered them to collect the demon Alastair for interrogation, Zachariah who commanded Castiel’s re-education. It is fitting that it is Zachariah who has imprisoned Dean Winchester to usher in the Apocalypse.

Dean rages at Zachariah, and at Castiel.

“Get me outta here, Cas!” Dean demands, and Castiel stares at the wall where the corners meet: ceiling, side, floor, all lined up with an exit. When he fails to respond, Dean grabs his shoulder and spins him. He’s sparking, righteous, his soul glowing and expanding to fill up the room.

 _You have to stop the Apocalypse,_ Jimmy says from within. _Castiel, you have to stop this!_

Dean moves into his face, too close for comfort. “Please, Cas. Get me outta here. I’ve gotta find Sammy. I’ve gotta _stop_ this.”

“There is no stopping this, Dean,” Castiel tells him.

“You told me that you’d help,” Dean seethes. “You told me you believed in me, and now you’re gonna let these dicks win? You’re gonna let them destroy everything? Wipe out all of humanity?”

_Castiel, you can’t let my family die._

Castiel closes his eyes. His vessel remembers him, and his grace remembers his vessel, but somehow, the fit is slightly off. They are a beat apart, unsynced, and Castiel cannot find the reason why. He wishes that closing his eyes would cause everything to fall away, but when he opens them again, Dean is still there, against Castiel’s face, so close Castiel can see the gold flecking the green of his eyes.

“Cas, if there was ever anything worth dying for,” Dean says, and his mouth thins to almost nothing before he finishes, “this is it.”

_Castiel, you promised. You promised me they’d be alright!_

Castiel says nothing. He is a soldier. He is an angel of the Lord. His vessel’s heart slams against his lungs, echoing against his ears, but he says nothing.

“Get out,” Dean orders, and turns his back. “We’re through.”

Castiel complies.

\--

 _You can’t do this,_ Jimmy says. _Castiel, you’re not like this. You’re not like them._

He has always been like them, simply not as dedicated, not as pure.

_You care about humanity, you can’t let them all die._

Perhaps it was Michael who ordered the re-education. Michael, the archangel from whom Castiel claimed the chosen vessel. It should have been Michael raising Dean from the hellfire.

_Castiel, my family. They’ll die. You promised me they wouldn’t die. You promised me you’d protect them._

There are flashes of Amelia and Claire Novak, domestic: sitting around the dinner table, watching television on the couch. But they are nothing compared to the sway and pull of Heaven’s Host, and they are all around Castiel. They whisper in his head, an echo of the prayers from below. It’s a frequency not easy to ignore, and the images Jimmy summons are gone with the next crest, inconsequential and irrelevant.

Jimmy pushes against the vessel’s confines. He pleads, shouts, begs. Castiel should put him to sleep, and as if he senses the intent, Jimmy’s awareness shrinks back and away.

 _What about Dean, Castiel?_ he asks. _What about Dean Winchester? You care about him._

Castiel’s heart trips.

 _You saw the way he looked at m—you, the way he looked at you,_ Jimmy continues. _He believes in you. He really, truly believes in you. He… he cares about you._

Castiel is back in Hell, surrounded by demons and screams, and Dean Winchester’s soul is shining brighter than the sun.

 _Help him,_ Jimmy whispers. _Help him and save everyone._

Castiel closes his eyes. Through the tether, Jimmy sends memories: Dean sitting on the dock in his dreams with a fishing rod, Dean leaning back on the bench in the park. Dean’s eyes as they narrow and shift, following the line of Castiel’s jaw.

When Castiel opens his eyes again, he’s inside the room.

\--

He flies at Dean and spins him, pushes and flips them until Dean’s back is against the wall. Castiel’s hand is over Dean’s mouth so he can feel hot breaths against his palm. He stares at Dean, and Dean stares back, and inside, Jimmy slides into quiet with a sigh of acceptance.

 _Go,_ he says. _Save him. Save everyone._

Castiel has his blade in his right hand, and Dean’s eyes travel down to it. It’s obvious by the widening of his eyes that he understands, but he doesn’t _understand_ , not truly. Castiel pulls his hand away from Dean’s mouth and doesn’t allow his eyes to fall away with it. He feels. He wants.

He leans in to slot his mouth against Dean’s in perhaps the most selfish act he’s ever committed.

There is only a moment before Dean has roughly shoved him away, and the knife goes clattering down to the floor. Castiel is too thrown to reach for it, too surprised to bend down, and then Dean is pushing him again. There is anger there, and frustration, and something concealed by a thread nearly unraveled. Dean corners him against the wall and surges in to grab Castiel’s lapels. His hands are fisted around the material and shaking, trembling, so much so that Castiel can feel the tremors in his chest.

Then he kisses Castiel, a real kiss this time, a full kiss with clanking teeth and merciless pressure. Dean commands his mouth to part with the urgency of the dying, swallowing Castiel’s involuntary groan, and Castiel is helpless. Dean is the undertow, and Castiel is trapped within its sway. His body quivers with the intensity of it, and if Castiel didn’t know better, he’d had thought his heart was ready to explode. There would be no pieces of him left, no scattered remains beneath Dean’s demands.

Unchecked, his wings burst into being across the planes of existence and quake against the walls, defying everything.

“What is this?” Zachariah exclaims from the opposite end of the room. “Castiel?”

They break apart in a motion that nearly rends Castiel in two, and without thinking, his grace roars up around him. It slides into the wall, sweeping into the strokes needed, and Castiel doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t wait; he slams his palm against it to light up the sigil with his very grace, his very _soul_ , one wing curling around to shield Dean’s eyes from the brightness of it.

When the room dims again, Zachariah is gone, but Dean’s hands are still fisted in Castiel’s overcoat.

They stare at each other.

“Let’s go,” Castiel says. “Let’s stop this.”

There’s a hum from within as Jimmy unfurls and says, _Thank you, Castiel._

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://aerodaltonimperial.tumblr.com/).


End file.
